ANN ARBOR, MI – September 21, 2005 – Jetrion LLC, a leading supplier of inkjet printers, inks and custom systems, today announced a strategic partnership with Advanced Electron Beams, Inc. (AEB), developer and patent holder of a major technological breakthrough in e-beam technology.
The companies have partnered to bring a new technology to the marketplace that matches the high-speed performance of the drop-on-demand Jetrion 3025 Inkjet System, with the unsurpassed complete-cure speed of AEB's highly compact e-beam emitter, for use in a wide range of inkjet applications throughout the graphics, label and packaging industries.
The AEB e-beam emitter will be on display in Jetrion's Labelexpo Europe 2005 stand (#6F35). The equipment will be available to Jetrion’s customers for installation in the fourth quarter of this year.
AEB has tremendously simplified the use of e-beam technology and significantly lowered the acquisition cost. Its small emitter unit is comparable in size to most UV systems, fits on all types of presses and can be retrofitted easily on existing presses.
"Jetrion's partnership with AEB represents an important new phase in our ongoing commitment to provide our customers with the most innovative and productive technology in the inkjet field," said Dr. Ken Stack, president of Jetrion. "From the outset, we saw the tremendous potential of AEB's compact e-beam emitter to provide an unparalleled high speed, cost-effective curing solution that will have a strong positive impact, most notably on label production. Partnered with our own new inkjet technology, Jetrion is the company best positioned to introduce AEB's powerful curing technology to the marketplace."
Shawn Wald, vice president, Business Development for AEB, noted "We chose Jetrion as the logical partner to launch our e-beam curing technology into the graphic arts industry. It's a fast-growing organization, well known for the introduction of its own new groundbreaking technologies that have won fast acceptance. They have the strong infrastructure in place to rapidly develop industry awareness of the value of AEB's e-beam curing technology and build the graphic industry customer base for our systems."
With a compact AEB e-beam emitter installed in-line, printers have the capability of completely curing black, as well as other custom colors and even clear inks, on press at unprecedented speeds, with higher quality, more ink gloss and better adhesion than other energy-curing systems. E-beam curing also allows ink colors to remain more vivid and intense.
Jetrion's current line of UV inks can be cured with the AEB e-beam emitter. The company also plans to introduce a new line of inkjet inks formulated specifically for the AEB unit.
Particularly important for Jetrion's narrow web label and flexible packaging customers, the AEB e-beam curing system runs with virtually no heat going to the web. The cool operating environment allows the use of a much wider range of label substrates and eliminates the need for chill drums on unsupported film label presses.
With the availability of more substrates to work with, the e-beam curing system is expected to increase the production capabilities of Jetrion customers and open opportunities to explore additional markets for new business.
From an operational standpoint, e-beam technology is extremely controllable. It enables instant on-off press operation with minimal start-up time, and does not require that the press be kept running to avoid premature curing in printheads. E-beam material can remain in a press between runs, and will not cure until the press is re-started.
The AEB e-beam emitter offers extraordinary energy efficiency using, on average, as little as 20 percent of the power required for most UV systems. Jetrion's parent company, Flint Ink Corporation, currently has two AEB e-beam emitters installed in its research and development laboratories.